Not Much to Report. Small Projects.

 I fell down the Disney rabbit hole for a couple of months.  I have researching how to make Mickey ears and trying to decide who my favorite princess is.  

I didn't even know a favorite princess was a thing, but everyone has one.  I insisted that I like all the princesses, but when I sat down to really think about it, I did have a favorite.  I went old school and picked Snow White as my favorite princess.  She was the original and she ticks off all the princess boxes for me.  I don't know why she doesn't have a castle.  Snow White needs a castle and  Tinkerbell needs to be considered a princess, just my opinion.

I played a little with making some Mickey ears with hot glue but it was a fail.  So I did some additional research on youtube and I found a sewing tutorial that I like a lot. She only used some hot glue to cover the headband in fabric everything else is sewn by hand or by machine.  Here is a link to the youtube tutorial:  Sewing Mickey Ears.  She also sells a .pdf of  the templates she uses to to cut the fabric, foam, interfacing and headband cover.  I have to say I also purchased the templates that she uses.  I thought it was worth the $7.00 to get a good result.  It's a very nice tutorial.   I did wonder what kind of foam the maker used because she just calls it foam and doesn't describe it.  I ended up buying Fairfield Nufoam cushion foam (found at my local JoAnn's) that is 15" x 17" by 1" thick.  I will have to cut the foam in half to get the 1/2" thickness but that will be easy.  I'll let you know how it goes with this foam I'm using.  My plans are to make a pair of Tinkerbell ears and a pair of Snow White ears.  You've already seen my Tigger ears on the visor that I bought from an Etsy seller.  I love those ears.     

Dear daughter asked me to make some fabric utensil roll/wraps to keep reusable utensils and straws together for travel.   They don't have to be big so I decided that I will cut the fabric about 25" by 10".  Turn up the bottom, sew some separations for pockets.  I will add some loops so the straws can be held in place to keep them from popping out and I will add some thin ties to the outside to tie up the roll.

I'm also going to make some fabric cord wraps for electronic cords.  There are lots of instructions on the internet (found most of them on Pinterest), so I'm just going to dive into my fabric stash, interfacing stash and velcro stash and make a few different sizes for her and me.  I originally thought that these would be handy for cords that you need to travel with but I also realized that these will be handy for appliances at home, like my stand mixer and my iron.

I spent some time designing and sewing up a Mickey ear holder.  We will use these to secure our ears to our park bags when we want to take them off for a ride or we get tired of wearing them.  They will hang by a loop from our park bag on a carabiner or any big clip we may have.  We could also thread it onto a key ring.  Sorry I don't have ears right now to demonstrate but you can see what it looks like in the picture and I'll tell you how I made it.  So simple.  

Cut one 9" x 2.25" strip of fabric (for holder) 

Cut one 6" x 1.25" strip of fabric (for hanging loop)

Cut one 6" long 1/2" wide piece of elastic

Use 1 - 1" parachute clip.

Sew the bigger piece of fabric into a tube longways, turn it right side out, fold in the ends and insert the 6" piece of 1/2" elastic inside the tube.  Thread one end of the fabric and elastic through one piece of the parachute clip and sew it securely.  Then thread the other end of fabric and elastic into the other piece of parachute clip and sewed that securely.   To make the hanging loop fold the strip of fabric up so no raw edges show and sewed it up.  Insert this strip into one of the fabric loops where the fabric folds around the parachute clip.  Sew the ends of the loop securely.  It's done.  

It's not very pretty but it will be very functional and much cheaper than the price of ear holders I have seen on Etsy.  The cost of the holders I made included the price of the Stitch fabric I bought at $10.00 including shipping and  two of the 1" parachute clips which cost about $3.00 at Joann's.  You don't need special Disney fabric for the ear holders.  No one would know or care what fabric you used.  You can barely tell what fabric I used because it's not a lot of fabric.

Here is a picture of the fabric I used.

  Here is a picture of the holder on a carabiner.

   

  I'm making some fabric headbands that I found on Pinterest.  There are a lot of instructions on the internet.  I made up my own instructions.  I cut a 3.5" x 30" strip of fabric and sew it along the long end tapering each end to a point.  I cut it in half, turn the two halfs right side out, insert a 6 inch piece of 1/2" elastic into each open end and sew it to secure it.  Tie the tapered ends into a knot and you are done.

Next thing on my list is to start my quilt.  I have some fabric cut but haven't felt like actually sewing it up into blocks.  I will start in earnest next week.  August will be here before you know it.